


you're always owing

by ozmissage



Category: Justified
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-09
Updated: 2012-07-09
Packaged: 2017-11-09 12:28:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/455450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ozmissage/pseuds/ozmissage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He knows Tim will come just as surely as Tim knows he’ll go—saying no to Raylan ain’t a thing he’s learned how to do yet.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're always owing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [assassin_nariel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/assassin_nariel/gifts).



Tim pulls the trigger.

There was a time when maybe he would have hesitated, when the idea of taking a life would have left his nerves jangling, his fingers twitching and unreliable. (Truth is the thing that keeps him up most nights is the idea there was never such a time.) Now though he sees a gun aimed at Raylan’s head—not an unusual sight in and of itself, but one that doesn’t sit right with him when he knows the Marshal is unaware of his predicament—and he pulls.

It’s a simple thing really. Simple as breathing.

-

It’s been awhile since they’ve had a job go so thoroughly pear-shaped. Things have been downright quiet since Quarles. Even Harlan has kept to itself, and Tim would call that a miracle on par with the Virgin Mary appearing on that grilled cheese sandwich.

He knew the calm couldn’t last forever. He was hoping it would at least hold out until the weekend though.

“Do you think maybe it’s the hat that pisses them off?” Tim calls to Raylan as he approaches. The body is at Raylan’s feet, the blood seeping across the concrete. Tim keeps his eyes on Raylan. The important thing isn’t the dead asshole on the street, it’s his partner who is alive and well, thanks to him.

“Could be,” Raylan replies with a shrug that seems to suggest he thinks Tim just made a valid point. He walks away from the body and Tim is happy to follow.

“You owe me again,” Tim half teases Raylan. By then, Raylan is already sliding into his car, but he pauses long enough to flash Tim that shit-eating grin of his. Tim hates that grin almost as much as he loves it.

“Put it on my tab.”

Tim keeps watching until Raylan’s car disappears around the corner.

-

Back at the office, Tim breaks out a bottle of Jack he keeps stashed in his drawer. He has taken to keeping it on hand for the bad days. Not just for himself, but for all of them—Rachel, Art, Raylan. Sometimes they stay late after, drinking and shooting the shit.

He figures they’ll all need a drink after the day they’ve had, but then Raylan doesn’t bother coming back into the office. Art tells Tim that Raylan called from his car to promise to take care of the paperwork first thing in the morning. If the disappointment Tim feels shows up on his face, Art is kind enough not to mention it.

Rachel’s in a hurry too.

“You got a date or something?” Tim asks as he watches her cram files into her bag like the building is burning.

She grins at him. “The first thing.”

Art looks too tired and too irritable for drinking, his head bent over a stack of papers in his office. “We can’t just leave this shit until tomorrow,” he mutters when Tim walks in.

“I got it,” Tim says. “You go on home.”

“If you’re fishing for a raise, you should know I already had to cut out paperclips from the budget. Staplers are going next.”

Tim shakes his head.

“I’ve got nowhere else to be.”

-

It takes him all of an hour to get the work done. If Raylan had stayed it would have taken all night. Concentrating is not the Marshal’s strong suit. It would have been more interesting though.

Tim doesn’t touch the Jack. Getting buzzed alone in the empty office doesn’t sound like his idea of a good time, but he still needs a drink.

He flips off the lights and makes a beeline for the nearest bar.

-

For a man that hates to drink alone, Tim sure ends up propping up bars all on his own a hell of a lot these days. The slick slide of a sweating glass in his hand is more familiar than the sensation of being touched by another living, breathing human being.

It’s not like he doesn’t get offers. It’s just that the thought of taking anyone up on them sounds exhausting. He’s pretty well settled into life in Lexington and he knows from past experience local encounters come laden with baggage he’s not interested in hauling around. He misses people, but the effort it would take to let anyone in would be exhausting and honestly, he’d rather just have another drink. Alcohol does wonders for a man who wants nothing more than for his mind to be put asunder after a long day of cleaning up messes. Especially when the clean up requires putting a bullet in the back of someone’s head.

Raylan Givens doesn’t give two fucks about Tim’s peace of mind though.

He calls before Tim reaches the bottom of his first glass.

“You busy?”

“Extremely,” Tim drawls, and takes a sip of his drink knowing full well Raylan will hear the clinking of the ice.

“Funny thing,” Raylan says. “I live over a bar now.”

“That is funny.”

“I need your help on something,” Raylan tells him because damned if Raylan is the asking sort.

“I’m not easy,” Tim replies. “You gotta at least buy me a drink first.”

Raylan laughs soft and low like. The sound seems to have a direct line to Tim’s cock. That ain’t exactly news to Tim though. Raylan ends their call without so much as a goodbye. He knows Tim will come just as surely as Tim knows he’ll go—saying no to Raylan ain’t a thing he’s learned how to do yet.

-

It’s raining when he exits the bar, fat, cold droplets that slide down the back of his t-shirt and leave him shivering by the time he climbs into his car.

_Shit,_ Tim swears. He begins thinking up a litany of creative curses he can hurl at Raylan when he sees him.

The truth is though, he doesn’t mind coming when Raylan calls. He won’t even mind if it ends in trouble. Hell, he might even prefer it.

If it was the quiet life he was after, Tim would have never set one toe in Lexington. He would have retired, hung up his guns and bought a car then driven it all the way out to Vegas, spent the rest of his days wearing those fucking ugly Hawaiian shirts favored by assholes and the depressed in equal measure. He would have gambled and drank himself into a stupor that never ended, fucked anything that was hard and willing.

But he’s not the sort to spiral, nor the sort to wear shirts with flowers. He’s a flannel man through and through, and it wasn’t the military that made him straight as an arrow. His hands were made to a hold a gun whether he’s standing on foreign soil or the red clay of Kentucky. He needs the job.

Tim’s got his share of regrets, but putting on a badge every morning won’t ever be one of them.

It’s the empty spaces between quitting time and the dawning of a new work day that he has trouble filling. When he’s off the clock, Tim’s life is quieter than he likes. He’s never had friends. In the army, he had brothers and sisters, but in the grand hierarchy of things, he was the scary ass stepbrother who never missed a target when he aimed his gun. Funny thing about snipers, they’re not the sociable types. Or at least that’s what people assume. Tim could make them all laugh, could have their backs, but they never knew him. There’s not many that ever have.

His daddy, maybe. But then his daddy was a bastard, and Tim would prefer to live to see a day where he could be known by someone he didn’t dream about putting a bullet in.

-

“Did you take a detour?” Raylan says by way of greeting.

All of the clever comebacks that had formulated in Tim’s mind on the ride over never make it past the tip of his tongue because Raylan’s half-standing, half-leaning against the doorframe, lip swollen, black eye, favoring his left side and there’s blood from one end of him to the other as far as Tim can tell.

They had a rough day, but five hours ago when Raylan left, he had still been in one piece.

“What the fuck happened to you?” Tim breathes.

Raylan shrugs, a sheepish smile on his swollen lips.

“Told ya, I needed help.”

“Good to know you don’t cry wolf. I’ll file that away for future reference, and if you ever call and say the world’s ending, I’ll know we’re good and fucked.”

Tim slides an arm around Raylan’s waist and helps him hobble back to the bed. It occurs to Tim that Raylan probably doesn’t need the help; he did make his way to the door just fine after all. Still, Tim doesn’t let go of him until they reach the foot of the bed. He gracelessly dumps Raylan onto the white sheets and watches as a drop of blood makes its way down Raylan’s arm.

“That’s going to stain,” Tim says.

“Sheets needed a wash anyway. There’s a first aid kit under the sink. I was going to tidy myself up, but then I discovered bending over was no longer a thing I can do.”

Tim flips on the bathroom light. Raylan’s bathroom doesn’t look all that different from his own. Standard bar soap, one towel, one toothbrush—it’s a depressing sight. Comforting too, though.

Of course, Tim doesn’t have a sonogram taped to his mirror.

He slips off his squelching boots and his soggy flannel shirt too, and then he sets about washing his hands, making sure the water is scalding hot. No one would ever mistake him for a doctor, but he learned a thing or two about mopping up men in the field. He didn’t always have access to a sink there.

That’s not a line of thinking Tim is in the mood to pursue, so he retrieves the first aid kit from under the sink and pads back across Raylan’s carpet in his damp socks before coming to perch at the edge of the bed, facing Raylan. He flips open the first aid kit and is relieved to find it fully stocked. Given Raylan’s propensity for getting his ass kicked, it was a fifty-fifty gamble.

“Are you going to tell me the other guy looks worse?” Tim asks. “Because if you are, I’m thinking we’re going to need to put in a call to a coroner. Or find a shovel. Shovel might be easier actually; we could skip all the paperwork.”

“I do hate paperwork,” Raylan says.

Tim wets a cloth with alcohol and begins dabbing at the worst of the cuts on Raylan’s face. Raylan flinches and Tim’s close enough to see the muscles in Raylan’s jaw clench. Seeing as how things are slow at the office, the day’s shoot-out aside, Tim thinks he has a pretty good idea of who the other guy was.

“Boyd Crowder?”

Raylan arches an eyebrow at Tim. Tim’s not sure if Raylan is surprised or impressed.

“That was a hell of a guess.”

“In my free time I run one of those psychic phone lines. Ninety cents a minute and the health plan includes dental.”

Tim turns his attention to Raylan’s arm. It could probably do with a stitch or two, but Raylan doesn’t exactly look like he’s willing to make a trip down to the ER. Tim bandages it up the best he can.

“So…” Tim prompts.

“So what?”

“So why’d you drive down to Harlan to pick a fight with Boyd?”

“Who says I started it?”

It’s Tim’s turn to arch his eyebrow.

“It’s his birthday,” Raylan offers.

“For the record, I prefer cake to missing teeth.”

“But you’ve got dental.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m chomping at the bit to use it. You know your explanation sounds like the ramblings of that crazy homeless guy that stands outside the station eating Styrofoam cups, right?”

“That’s Bob.”

“Of course you know his name.”

Raylan smirks, but he goes quiet, serious even. Tim reaches for the hem of Raylan’s shirt and Raylan lifts his arms so Tim can get a better look at his side. It’s turning an ugly shade of purple and green, like an eggplant that has gone rotten, but Tim’s seen worse. Might be a broken rib or two, but Raylan’ll live.

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“Not sure I could if I wanted to,” Raylan says. “What’s between me and Boyd…it’s complicated.”

Tim nods.

“Well, I am a simple man. I am curious about one thing though.”

“What’s that?”

“Why the hell did you call me?”

Raylan looks right at Tim and smiles.

“Got no one else, I guess.”

That’s not something Tim was expecting to hear. He’s not even sure it makes sense. He flips the lid on the first aid kit shut and stands up.

“Do you have any beer here, or am I going to have to walk downstairs?”

Raylan gestures to the mini-fridge and Tim gets out two amber bottles then passes one to Raylan who pops the cap and takes a long, grateful drink.

Mindful of Tim’s handiwork, Raylan carefully slides himself back until he’s propped up against the headboard.

“Remote’s over there,” he tells Tim, pointing at the dilapidated table by the door. Tim grabs it and flips on the TV, and idly begins channel surfing in hopes of finding a baseball game. He ends up on some late night talk show he’s sure neither one of them has had occasion to watch before.

Tim is uncomfortably aware that Raylan’s watching him instead of the screen.

“Sorry I left in such a hurry today,” Raylan says. “It would have been a good day for a drink.”

-

They fall asleep on the bed. Tim wakes in the middle of the night and contemplates moving to the floor, but seeing how this is Raylan’s floor it probably hasn’t seen a vacuum cleaner since he moved in. Beside him, Raylan’s wheezing a little, but he’s otherwise dead to the world. Tim is just close enough to feel the warmth off Raylan’s body. That is its own form of torture.

He stays put though. He’s bone tired, and being near someone, being near Raylan, is better than the whole lot of nothing waiting for him at home.

-

Raylan calls in the next morning, tells Art some half-truth about an altercation. Tim’s got no such luxury.

“Thanks for your help,” Raylan says gesturing to his bandages.

“I’ll just add it to your tab,” Tim replies, throwing in a smirk for good measure, but Raylan catches Tim’s arm. His hand is warm, his grip strong, and Tim’s body responds the only way it can.

“I’ll settle that tab one of these days.”

Tim nods, but he’s not sure he believes Raylan.

“Just don’t play hookie for too long,” Tim says. “And see a damn doctor, will you?”

-

On his way to work, Tim rolls the windows down. The rain stopped during the night and the city smells good for once. That’s a rare enough occurrence that Tim knows he best savor it while he can.

He shows up in the office wearing the same clothes he wore the night before and Rachel gives him a knowing look. He doesn’t tell her any different.

Raylan shows up around quitting time, moving slow, but looking more than ready to get back to looking for trouble.

“Seems to me I’ve still got some paperwork to do,” he says. “Is that bottle of Jack Daniels still in your desk?”

Tim slides open his drawer to give Raylan a peek.

As usual, Raylan doesn’t ask him to stay, but Tim assumes the invitation was implied.


End file.
